


40 Days

by Shiggityshwa



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cam pov, Gen, Mission Gone Wrong, Sick Character, Sickfic, quarantine fic, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26069875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiggityshwa/pseuds/Shiggityshwa
Summary: After a routine mission trudging through the rainforest on an off-world planet results in SG-1 bringing back an illness, a quarantine is issued forcing them to remain in the medical bay of Cheyenne Mountain while uninfected staff try to find a vaccine. May have eventual Cam/Vala.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Day 0

Day 0

Man, he really hates jungle missions.

In the air force—well, when he was a pilot in the air force—he never really had to do much but fly over them, admire the sheet of thick, green trees from above, appreciate the beauty before it was gone in a second and he was back to flying over fields or water.

Jungle missions aren’t entirely common, most of the planets they go to are desert or colder, less dense, forests, but sometimes they get the bad draw of having to go to a hot planet that’s not beaches or deserts—one where they have to march through the thick vines hanging under a heated canopy, and with all the gear, it feels like he’s in an oven.

Then there’s other great things that come along with jungles—mud slides, quicksand, rapids, and waterfalls.

And bugs.

His least favorite by far because bugs, especially mosquitoes, love to give him a nip.

As they march on back through the gate, Sam speaks technobabble to Daniel about how the magnetic field on the planet isn’t right, something about the polarities, showing him readouts on her data tablet, while he steps in time with Teal’c, who despite the new fashionable white streak in his hair, hasn’t even broken a sweat.

“Is it possible to put a moratorium on planets that are this hot, that don’t have beaches?” Vala is straggling behind them, her pigtails poofed out from the humidity, her pack hanging off her by a thread, while she stumbles over the muddy landscape, up the ramp, and through the gate.

“—beaches with strapping, shirtless men, would be preferable, but I’ll take any sandy shore and sapphire water that—”

“Vala.” Daniel only halfheartedly shouts back at her, mostly for interrupting the discussion he’s having with Sam.

She huffs, stopping directly behind him and Teal’c, her backpack strap finally snapping, falling to the ground.

Landry’s not there to greet them, or give them directions for debriefing—they did find small stores of naquadah, but nothing to really brag about—so wordlessly they break off, him, Daniel, and Teal’c heading one way, Sam and Vala the other.

Before they shower, they have to get checked over medically—since so much bad voodoo has been brought back through the gate: parasites, infections, diseases, viruses, there’s been small areas implemented for immediate return from off world.

He takes a seat in the closet-sized room with just a chair, and a fancy piece of medical equipment and waits for Lam, or whatever other doctor is on duty, to make her way down the line.

It tends to get a little hot in the exam rooms because they’re so small and so close together—more like closets than rooms—he shucks his smelly river water soaked jacket over the back of chair he’s sitting on, trying not to notice how much it smells like sweat and sulfur.

Lam tugs back the curtain to the small room, dressed in her usual trauma garb of that puffy yellow over suit, and a blue mask and gloves. As much as he hates having all this done whenever he comes back from off-world, it must get real exhausting dressing up like that between each team member.

“Evening, Colonel Mitchell.” She greets grabbing her trusty clipboard, ready to write down his vitals and whatever other weird things he tells her. The one time he said that he smelled bacon for two days and she wanted to shove a probe into the back of his nose to make sure there were no foreign bodies or infections.

Turns out the guy in the dorm next to him had an illegal Foreman grill, and just really liked bacon.

Since then he’s been more cautious about his complaining.

“Hello, Dr. Lam.” He sits still while she shoves the thermometer into his ear, it immediately beeps. “Am I your last patient?”

“Yes, Dr. Rix volunteered to do Vala and Colonel Carter’s exit medical exam.” She speaks but it’s autopilot, because her eyes squint as she checks the readout on the thermometer. “Your temps up.”

“Well, we were just in the equivalent of the Amazon basin for the last thirty-six hours.” He may be a little defensive, but it’s Friday night, and he has a date lined up.

“True, but Dr. Jackson and Teal’c’s didn’t have temperatures as high as yours.” She shrugs, making a note in his chart. “I’ll take it again at the end of the examination.”

She swabs his mouth, and he’s thankful that it’s not the probe going into his nose. When she turns to make notes he shudders, thinking about the one time they came back from a planet with active parasitic pollen that the MALP didn’t pick up—thankfully the spores couldn’t live in human hosts, but he still has nightmares about that probe going up his nose again.

The tip of his finger pinches a bit when she squeezes the little clip onto it to measure his oxygen levels—all of these things he never knew, but he’s done this so many times, with a rotating medical staff, that sometimes he can’t think of anything to talk about, so he asks what the hell all the medical jargon and machines are for.

“Oxygen levels just a little low—” she scratches something on his chart, but her eyes squint when she smiles at him “—don’t worry, so were Teal’c’s and Dr. Jackson.”

Lam straps on the blood pressure cuff to his arm and starts squeezing. He sits, waiting, feeling the material grow tighter around his skin, trying to distract himself because sometimes after an adrenaline rush of a mission, his pressure is a little high.

“Any plans for the weekend?”

“Actually, I’m seeing Major Carré again.”

“That’s exciting.”

“Well, last week I dragged him along to a wine tasting, so this week we’re going to a Godzilla movie marathon at the cinema downtown.” There’s a hiss of air releasing as she tugs the cuff off his arm. “So, I don’t know how excited I really am.”

“Are you kidding?” He rubs at the redness on his skin, then shakes his arm out, happy when the pressure goes away. “Hell, if you don’t want to go, tell Carré I will.”

Lam chuckles, writing the results onto his chart, not important enough for him to know, and then juts a thumb back to the curtain. “I just need to read over your blood results that the nurse took earlier.”

He nods, watching her leave, absently scratching at the side of his arm, trying to think of what actually makes for a good first date nowadays. When he was younger it was usually just dinner and a movie, but that really doesn’t cut it much anymore. Sometimes going to a higher-class restaurant or bar is okay, but if she’s not into it, he needs to have a contingency plan.

Bowling? Do people still bowl?

If it were ten years ago, he would just tell her that he’s a pilot in the military and there wouldn’t be much more work than that, but things change, he changed, and dating isn’t the fun past time that it used to be because with each failed relationship, he’s that much closer to being alone indefinitely.

Lam pulls back the curtain again, walking in with the same puffy suit, the same blue mask, and gloves, but this time she’s holding a piece of paper.

“All clear, Doc?” Pre-emptively, he reaches back, snagging his BDU jacket from off the chair, ready to head to the showers, and out into the city, hoping that he thinks of a good date idea on the way.

But when he stands, Lam holds up her hand, halting him in place.

“Is there a problem?” Sort of chuckles it out because he does this whole post mission protocol at least once if not twice a week, and there’s never been a hitch. It’s never taken longer than fifteen minutes to give him the all clear, and chase him out of the room so they can start disinfecting it.

“There’s a spike in your white blood cell count.” She doesn’t answer him directly, which isn’t a good sign, because he knows doctors, and he know Carolyn, and she’s never been one to dance around a subject.

“Okay?” Hangs his jacket over his hooped arm, wondering how big a deal it actually is, expecting to just get sent off with a warning. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that your body is fighting an infection, something supported by your increase in temperature.”

Sighs into his hand, realizing just how clammy his face it. Again, if it were ten years ago, he might put up a fight, but Lam is only trying to do her job, just like he does. Protect him, protect the others. “Okay, so what’s the protocol?”

He’s probably gonna be base bound for the weekend, which isn’t ideal. It doesn’t sound good to call out on a first date, even if he is working for air force, but if she can’t understand the reasons why he canceled, then she’s probably not a good match for him.

“You need to go into quarantine right away.”

“So, grounded here for the weekend?” But Lam doesn’t reply, and it’s never a good thing when she doesn’t immediately answer questions. “More than that?”

“Cam, whatever’s in your system, it might be highly contagious, you may have already transferred it to the rest of the team.”

“Wait. Wait. Slow down.” Waves his hands in the air, not exactly becoming actions of an air force colonel, but her voice, her thoughts, are moving too fast, and he’s trying to keep up. “How do you know the others are infected?”

“I don’t, it’s speculation based on their raised temperatures, and their slightly lower blood pressure.”

“So why do you think I did it?”

“I don’t think you did anything on purpose, Cam—” he notices the she’s cradling those awful blue scrubs in her arms, and man he hates wearing those things, they’re too breezy and they never fit right—he’s never been a self conscious kinda guy, even after his accident, but those scrubs really bring it out in him “—but you’re showing the most advanced symptoms, so I’m guessing that whatever we’re going to be dealing with started with you.”

“Great,” sighs again, flapping his fingers, gesturing for her to give him the scrubs to change into, just sinking into his own defeat. “The one weekend I had plans.”

“You and me both,” Lam laments, handing him over the pile of clothing, along with a bag for the BDUs he’s wearing now, and his very own mask, which is something new.

She gives him privacy to change, pulling the curtain closed and going to make a phone call not only to advise Dr. Rix that there’s a possible contagion situation, but also the general that the base may need to be locked down, that employees leaving the building under any circumstance—through the gate or though the front door—need to be scanned to determine if they might be infected.

He’s starting to get a little freaked out because it seems like nothing. He feels fine except for being a little hot—something the crappy scrubs don’t help with at all—and a really itchy arm.

When she returns, he hands over the bag of his dirty clothes, boots in tow, and follows her out of the post mission examination area, through a short hallway acting as a backdoor and fire route from medical.

“General Landry has sequestered the rest of SG-1 to their dorms for the evening, they’re not to leave in the morning until someone’s been around to do another examination of them to see if they’ve caught whatever you have.”

She directs him into the room they’ve always referred to as the bubble room. He’s never seen it actually used, it’s more for storing things—alien things—that they think might be contagious in order for Dr. Lee or Sam to run tests on from afar.

But there’s always the first time for everything.

The room is always set up with a few made cots, and medical equipment that’s never been used, until now.

“What do you think it is?” Asks, again just trying to clear the heavy awkwardness in the air because he might have a lethal infection, he might have infected all his teammates—not that he doesn’t have faith in Lam’s abilities to heal, but sometimes fears are hard to kick.

“It’s too early for me to tell.” She speaks over her shoulder, her words muffled, the straps of her mask digging into her cheeks as she flicks on medical equipment and starts to tug it into the area beside the bed he’s picked, struggling when the wheels hit a stitch in the floors.

Without thinking, he pushes himself away from the bed, moving beside Lam to disengage the machine from where it’s snagged on a bit of a raised floor tile, not thinking of the implications of his close contact, instead thinking of how he was raised to be respectful and offer help where needed.

Lam does jump back a bit but isn’t too upset at him.

“Thanks,” it’s a mumble, but somehow terse, reminding him to keep his boundaries. He’s not team leader in this room, he’s the patient and she’s the doctor, he’s gotta follow her orders and stay put where she places him.

When she gestures back to the bed, he nods, agreeing, understanding that for however long he’s in here, she’s the boss.

“Did you eat or drink anything not indigenous to Earth?” Lam questions as she rolls the machine over to his bed, fiddling with buttons, getting it ready to do whatever it does in case his body decides to suddenly tank.

“Nothing not from MREs.”

“Were you submersed in water at all?”

He chuckles, grinning, “do you think we just pull David Copperfield acts on other planets as a sign of good will.”

Lam doesn’t take the joke very well, or she’s starting to get frustrated because she drops her hand from configuring the machine and turns to him. “I meant did you go into any deep puddles, lakes or other bodies of water, Colonel.”

“Yeah, that does make more sense.”

“It was a tropical planet, right?”

“More like a tropical rainforest. Lots of water.”

“Did you wade through any?”

“Yeah, we had to cross the river a few times at shallow points.”

“Well—” the machine beeps to life in front of her, Ancient writing scrawling across the screen and he recognizes it as one of the pieces of Asgard technology those gray guys gave to Sam. Dr. Lee and her have spent the better part of two years working on a way to implement Asgardian knowledge into medical use—she even used to work on it in her spare time on Atlantis. This has to be the prototype “We’re probably looking at a virus or fungus in the water. I’ll let General Landry know to send another team back to collect samples for me.”

It's the last thing she says to him, not that it’s not poignant enough, it’s always good to have a plan of action, but the fact that she doesn’t try to reassure him—Lam’s bedside manner has never been the best, but she always tries to end on a positive note.

The fact that she didn’t say things were gonna be okay, means they’re probably gonna get worse, real fast.


	2. Day 1

He wakes up not entirely sure of where he is until he hears the sound of the HVAC system, hissing and emptying, disinfecting and purifying the air.

It’s a grim reminder that he’s in the quarantine room.

The only contact he’s had in almost twenty-four hours being the night nurse who came to check on him once—honestly, he doesn’t blame them because the piles of protective equipment they have to wear seems like a waste just to come share the same space as him.

He never got to go on that date he had lined up either.

In the middle of the night he woke up because he was far too hot, the scrubs starting to get heavy with his sweat and laying wet against his body. In his bare wakefulness, he thought that she’d probably love to go to a karaoke bar.

He’s never been to one, and he’s not much for singing, but if it entertains her, he’s all for it.

Knows that by now, his date is well aware the reason why he stood her up and he can only hope that she’s still interested, that she’s not worrying about him—okay, she can worry about him a bit, but not the kind of panic worrying.

Sits on the side of his bed, his head swimming in a weird emptiness—not so much a head cold collecting in his sinuses, the kind that stays stagnant and makes his head heavy when it hangs, but almost the exact opposite, like his head might fly off at any second.

Maybe Lam was on to something, quarantining him—all of them—but man, does he ever envy the rest of the team getting locked down in their own rooms. They have televisions, magazines—if he was in his room he could be playing PlayStation—anything to distract him from the achy hinges in his neck and his balloon head.

“Hey?” He shouts, knowing that no one is really watching him—of course, they’re ‘watching’ him, because he’s in quarantine, but they’re not just sitting at the nurses desk with a morning cup of coffee—which sounds like heaven right now—watching him wake up and move around like some really basic version of reality TV. “Can I get some breakfast? Or a coffee? Or a tv?”

The room, which is sectioned off from all the other medical rooms, reinforced by steel walls and sort of structured within a massive decontamination zone, is empty except for the other bed, medical machines, and a separated washroom containing a shower, a toilet, and a sink.

It’s quiet except for the hissing of the purified air.

Almost anywhere on the base he can always hear the marching of boots, or the low mumble of private conversations. There’s always some form of background noise, and now that he’s only left with a hiss it makes him anxious.

Like something could be going on out there—something bigger, badder—while he’s stuck in here, twiddling his own thumbs and demanding ESPN.

The door hisses as Lam walks in, all done up in her gear, looking like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Added to her medical gear is a bandanna over her hair, and a plastic shield over her mask.

“Morning, Colonel Mitchell,” she greets like waking around in a fat suit made of air is completely normal.

Like following the infectious disease protocol is an every day kinda thing for her—but then he remembers where they work, the things he’s had to deal with, the diseases, infections, Ori plagues they’ve all brought back—Maybe actually catching one this early, being so careful, is just refreshing to her.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m a little hot—” he pulls at the collar of his shirt, trying to fan the heat away from his body, but the material hangs heavy against him. “I think I might need a new pair of scrubs.”

“I can have one of the nurses bring in a set with your breakfast.” She rolls a table with the normal post-mission health check equipment on it—everything he did yesterday—"Do you still feel up to eating?”

“Yeah, I’m starving.”

When she reaches for his arm, he offers it to her to collect blood samples, and if he has to do this every day, he’s gonna start to get dizzy from it. Doesn’t mind needles—never has—but he isn’t the type for tattoos because his Ma would probably still chase him around the kitchen with a rolling pin if she found one on him.

After the blood is drawn, and Lam spends a few seconds taking it back through the decontamination chamber to an auxiliary lab they’ve set up to deal with the medical issues of anyone in quarantine, she returns to check his vitals.

“Your temperature is up again.”

“From yesterday?”

“Yeah.” Somehow wearing all the protective gear she’s in, she still manages to scratch out the number on his chart, sighing despondently.

“Well, it is a little hot in here—” tries to explain away what they both know is happening, that whatever this is, is growing stronger in his body.

“It’s not just that, your blood oxygen is a little low, and your blood pressure is low.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I wouldn’t get out of this bed unless you have to relieve yourself.”

“So just like all my other Saturdays off.”

“Cam,” she sighs again at his joke, but not despondently, more short-tempered. “This is serious. We don’t know what’s caused the infection yet, but I can say with relative confidence that most of your team has it.”

He holds out his arm so she can undo the cuff, and his fingertips run over the red lines left in his skin again. Keeps an eye on her, looking for her usual doctor tells, her inability to meet his gaze, her tripping over words. “They showing symptoms too?”

Lam pauses her writing, glancing up at him, wrapped up in gear like a kid in Kindergarten making their first trek to school in the snow—only her eyes visible under a plastic screen, but it’s filling with the condensation of her own breath. “You know I can’t discuss the medical matters of other Stargate employees with you.”

“No specifics.” Understands, he doesn’t need to—let alone, doesn’t want to—know the specifics of his whole team’s medical woes, just wants to know how bad off they are, if he should start preparing for roommates. “I just want to know how guilty I should feel.”

“Well, Dr. Jackson is exhibiting unusually low blood pressure, particularly when he, like you, usually sits moderate to high—”

“Stress of the job.”

She nods, agreeing with his assessment, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to try to explain that it’s not salt content from the bag of chips he likes to chow down on during his off-base nights.

“While Teal’c’s is almost unusually high when his resting heart rate is usually that of someone in a coma.”

“You think he’s fighting the infection off?”

“I can’t say for sure,” her voice drops, almost like she’s accepting culpability, “since he’s not human, and I only have a working knowledge of Jaffa physiology, he may be, but usually the first sign of an internal infection is a fever.”

“Well, at least no one else has got that—” but she turns away from him, even with her eyes hidden underneath a layer of fog, not wanting to engage. “Who’s got it?”

“Vala’s fever is higher than yours.”

“Shit.” He scratches at the back of his neck, at first imagining her trying to jail break her room and crawling around in the ducts like a homage to Alien, and now he pictures her just trying to find a moment of respite from the heat. It’s the middle of winter so all the indoor temperatures up, trying to heat up the complex that’s alternatively cooled by the freezing ground.

But this room is cooled to his liking, finds himself sweating, but not as much as he was when he was asleep under blankets, as he was on the later half of their journey through the muddy river.

“Why isn’t she in here then?”

“While Vala’s human, she’s not from Earth. I don’t know if this is normal or not for her, but she’s not showing very many signs of outward discomfort.”

“Are you sure?” Crunches his eyebrows asking incredulously, “because on the way back she wouldn’t shut up about how her boots and pants were wet from the river.”

“If this is a waterborne virus—” Lam sighs, marking something on the chart and turning towards the door. “They’re sending out a medical team this afternoon to gather samples of the water.”

He nods, watching her press the button to exit isolation, and offers, “ask the General for the mission plans. Follow the map we used.”


	3. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An FYI, this story is finished, but due to the posting schedule, it might only be posted once every three weeks or so. 
> 
> I really hate editing.

They end up bringing him in a TV, an old CRT TV. Apparently it was a relic left over from the medical lounge before they redid it all modernized a few years ago—he doesn’t know, he’s never been to the medical lounge, all he knows is that the screen is small and bulky, and the picture is beyond fuzzy, but they’ve hooked him up with the basic cable so he can watch ESPN and catch up on the games he’s missed.

The downfall to this is that the TV can’t be rolled very far from the wall it’s attached two with the cable wiring, so he has to sit almost on the other side of the room and squint to make out the team’s logos—he thinks he’s watching baseball.

Lam returns a little later on in the day, it’s hard because there’s no windows in the room, not even the basic comfort of the fake windows they install in the dorm rooms to fight the fact that he’s really sleeping leagues under the ground.

“What’s up, Doc?” Asks, spinning to sit up on the side of the cot, figuring she’s here to check his vitals again.

But her expression remains perturbed under the face shield. “It’s getting worse, Cam.”

“Me, or—” but he realizes she hasn’t even taken his vitals yet, so she can’t be talking about his medical status. Her face drops, turning back to stoic as she takes his offered arm, and slips the blood pressure cuff around it. “Oh.”

“You know,” she huffs out a laugh while inflating the cuff, watching the little ball rise to numbers that should be moderate high, but instead fall lower than expected. “One of the funny things about this whole thing, is you guys keep asking about each other.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods, releasing the air from the cuff and unwrapping it from his arm before tucking everything back against the machine which she flips on, retrieving the clip for the end of his finger. “I feel like I’m a carrier pigeon.”

The screen beside him flicks on, and numbers start rolling in over the bottom changing until resting on a constant. “Well, if you wanna relay how I’m doing to the others, I don’t mind.”

Thinks she grins because her eyes squint as she writes down the numbers, before removing the clip and flicking off the machine.

“What?”

“They said the same thing.”

He chuckles, because SG-1 is a team comprised of really different people, but when it boils down to it, they’re a family—they take care of each other—and they worry about each other.

Lam’s adding a disposable end to the thermometer when he glances up, watching how in her puffy suit, her blue-gloved hands struggle to get align the device correctly.

“You gonna give me any updates?”

“Well,” she huffs, the plastic shield over her face growing hazy before slowly dispersing. “Colonel Carter is the only one of you that’s asymptomatic.”

Watches as Lam tries again to align the pointed end of the thermometer with the disposable cap, taking only two more times until she does. 

Doesn’t remember her mentioning Sam’s health before—too preoccupied with the others, with himself, with a temperature that’s becoming a little bit distracting now, makes him feel like he just ran a marathon, hot and sweaty all over, like he needs too cool off in the shower.

“Sam’s healthy?”

“So far.” Lam inserts the pointed end into his ear, and although it should be happy news, she doesn’t seem too impressed with it. “If she doesn’t develop any symptoms, she could still be a carrier.”

“Oh.”

“So, she’s still being treated like she’s infectious.”

“If she doesn’t have the infection can you—”

Lam interrupts him, easily seeing where his trail of questioning is leading. “It’s still too early to tell. We don’t know anything about it. It’s an alien sickness and trying to find antibodies in Sam’s blood is a long way off.”

Nods, not exactly pleased with her bleak outcome—her bedside manner could use some refreshing, but she never bullshits them and that counts for more than a smile or a joke to alleviate the fear of not knowing what’s going on.

“How’s the rest of the team doing?”

“Oh, you know—” the device beeps in his ear and she retrieves it, glances at the numbers, shaking the thermometer, and then her head. “I have to check your temperature again.”

Wants to say it’s fine as long as she sticks with his ear—also wants to add as long as she keeps everything away from his nose—but he’s more interested in how the others are handling it. Tries to remember the exact details she told him last time. “Teal’c still fighting high blood pressure?”

“The highest recorded in him over the last decade.” Slips the newly coated tip back into his ear with another beep waiting for his temperature to appear. “If it gets any higher we might have to consider medicating him to lower it.”

“That serious?”

“Since his body isn’t used to his blood pressure being so high, it increases his risk of stroke and heart attack, so we have to monitor him very closely.”

The thermometer beeps again, and through the shield, he watches her eyes narrow, viewing the numbers with doubt.

“Are mine that bad?”

“Are your ‘what’ that bad?”

He chuckles, but finds his throat a little dry, it’s been a while since the lunch they brought him of a bowl of soup and some crackers—supposedly in case he starts blowing chunks, he won’t have that much ammo to work with—and the bottle of water that came with it ran out way to fast.

After clearing his throat and coughing once into his balled fist, he manages to ask, “any of my vitals, are they as worse than the others still?”

“Dr. Jackson’s blood pressure is lower than yours, it’s making him very lightheaded, so he’s been on bed rest a lot. We’ve been trying activities to raise it slightly—jumping jacks—”

“You’re making Jackson do jumping jacks?”

“In order to raise his blood pressure, yes.” Lam glances at him from where she’s adding notes to his chart. A lot of notes, something that’s never good.

His eyes start to sting—maybe when he coughed, a few tears got lodged or something—but when he runs his hand over his eyes to stop the burning, he finds his face loaded with sweat. “Why aren’t you making me do jumping jacks?”

“Dr. Jackson’s blood pressure is lower than yours.”

“Oh.”

“And you temperature is far too high to make you do anything too physical right now.”

“So, no calisthenics?”

“Not until you’re out of the territory of frying your own brain cells.”

He gulps, noticing the complete lack of liquid in his throat. “That bad, huh?”

“Not yet, but you’re approaching it. Your temperatures increased a degree since this morning.” With one final scratch, she sets the clipboard back onto the end of his cot.

“And Vala?”

“I have to check her next, but her fever was a lot worse than yours.”


	4. Day 3

When he wakes up the next day, his head is killing him. It’s not so much a headache as is it the pressure building in behind his eyes and nose that really kills anytime he bends over.

Found this out the hard way in the shower—which he still only shares with himself, something rare on a military base—when he missed the holder with his shampoo. Bent over to get it and almost slipped from the sudden pain, the disorientation, mixed with the suds slow to drain. Was only a few inches away from bashing his head off the wall and drowning in the piling water.

Doesn’t know why he remembers that so clearly but doesn’t remember when Lam comes to visit him for apparently the second time that day.

“You slipping, Doc?”

The clip returns to his index finger and he doesn’t know why they don’t just leave it on him, but if this infection gets bad—as bad as Lam is planning for it to be—then they might just have to.

“What do you mean?”

“You missed your rounds this morning.”

“No, I didn’t.”

The clip snaps off his finger and Lam rolls up the wire extension tucking back at the machine neatly as she does twice a day, even though she knows in twelve hours she’s just gonna have to put the damn thing back on his finger.

“Yeah, I remember because no one came to draw my blood.”

Is starting to like the blood draw the most because it only happens once a day, instead of twice, though it is the part that hurts the most, it always wakes him up a bit.

“I drew your blood this morning, Colonel.”

“No, you didn’t.” Knows because he was slow to wake this morning and went into the shower in order to help him get some clarity, the clear-headedness he usually gets this his morning cup of coffee and needle jab.

“Yes, I did.” She lifts his arm up and he expects her to slip the blood pressure cuff around it, letting the air hiss while they continue their debate.

But instead she points to the cotton ball—one that’s still a bit soggy—one that he missed in the shower apparently—being held down with a strand of medical tape.

“Why don’t I remember it?” A bad feeling starts to roll around in his gut, like maybe Lam’s caution wasn’t the stupidest thing in the world, that maybe she saw how bad all of this was going to get.

“It may an isolated symptom of the infection, or it could be because your temperature is so elevated.” Lam sighs, sitting back on her stool. The last few times she’s come into the quarantine room, she’s looked more and more like an astronaut—suited up for traveling into worlds that could have no atmosphere, no oxygen.

He thinks—but he doesn’t know—that he might have worn a spacesuit once or twice before.

“Is that why it’s so hot in here?” Tries to laugh it off, but his laugh exits his chest like a lung full of smoke, that makes him start coughing again.

His mouth is really dry.

“The temperature in here is normal—” Lam speaks over his barrage of coughs, as she shoves the end of the thermometer into his ear—her skills with capping the instrument are getting vastly better each day—the device beeps and her eyes squint in what must be a scowl as she documents the change. “Your body temperature is too high.”

“I had a feeling that was it.”

He’s out of breath and leaning over his legs, panting at the overexertion that just coughing has brought about his body. Doesn’t understand how Jackson can do jumping jacks now, how Teal’c can—forgets what Teal’c was doing for his symptom.

“We have two choices.”

Lam helps him lay back on the bed, wants to tell her that he doesn’t need the help, that he jogs at least two miles every morning and a total of five on days off, that he’s been sparring with Teal’c learning how to defend himself against different styles of attacks.

His skin is sweaty but cold all of a sudden and he shudders, falling to his side, “what are they?”

“SG-7 isn’t back with the water samples from the planet yet, and nothing is present in any blood samples I’ve taken—”

“I didn’t realize that SG-1 was that important to everyday operations.”

She ignores his second attempt at a joke, continuing to state his options, “I can try to treat you with a low grade antibiotic, it might get your fever down, but since the infection is alien, it could have adverse effects on your system.”

“And option number 2?”

“We try to keep your fever down with arcane solutions—”

“English, Doc.”

“Try the outdated ways to treat the fever—cold showers, plenty of fluids—and see if we’re able to curb it by tomorrow.”

“If not?”

Lam sits still on the stool, her hand crunching against her knees, the poof of the hazard wear on top of her normal clothes. “Then we would have to treat you with the antibiotics and hope for the best.”

He closes his eyes, suddenly more tired than he is thirsty or hot—reminds him of the days he overdoes it with the workouts, with the sparring and jogging, how muscles he’s been ignoring for the better part of a decade start to ache.

In a mumble, his face turned towards the ceiling, his scrubs getting heavy with sweat again, he questions, “you don’t think SG-7 and the medical unit will be back with a water sample by then?”

“It’s hard to say?”

“It’s like one of those old jokes—” a clump of something gets caught in his dry throat, and he sort of sputters around it “—how many members of the SGC does it take to collect a jar of water?”

“You know it’s not that easy, Colonel—”

“I dunno—”

“There’s medical and safety measures that need to be met—”

“I think if SG-1 was given a mission to collect a jar of water—”

“Not to mentions all the off-world protocols that still need to be followed—”

“You know, like an ecosystem in a jar?”

“What?” Lam stops arguing—friendly debating—with him and although his eyes haven’t opened, he knows that she’s watching him.

“You never had to do that in school? Collect pond water with a couple of snails, a couple of minnows, maybe a nice stick?”

The stool squeaks as Lam stands, and near to his left side he hears the fumbling of medical equipment as she rolls it back into place. “I don’t know it you’re starting to get delusional, or if this is an attempt at humor again.”

“Well—” his arms are suddenly cold, really cold—too cold for the room or the heat raising off of his skin. He turns onto his side, wrapping his arms around him, keeping his eyes closed because the pressure in his head has started to make him feel a little dizzy “—maybe if I wasn’t locked away like Rapunzel in a castle with no one to talk to and the world’s smallest TV—”

Realises he’s being vindictive—kind of a dick—Lam is really the only one who talks to him, who visits him, other than the morning nurse who comes to take his blood usually, although she missed this morning.

He coughs once, then twice, clears his throat again—not even knowing if the doctor is still in the room—and mutters, “sorry.”

“I can’t do anything about the TV, because recreation isn’t my department—” she scratches something down, probably on his chart, because he hears the familiar clang of it dropping into the holder at the end of his bed “—but you’ll probably have a roommate by tomorrow.”


	5. Day 4

Immediately, he knows he’s not alone the next morning.

Figures he slept through—or was hard to rouse—for the morning blood draw, but when he takes a glance to his arm, expecting to find a cotton ball over the stiff muscle and skin, he just finds his unmarked arm, meaning that it’s either too early or too late for the draw.

Maybe Lam started running her diagnostics on him without him knowing, but the clip is still attached to the machine, and the blood pressure cuff is gone.

When he turns his neck to the side, he finds it tense, like he slept all night on it wrong and he works his heavy legs to kick the blanket and sheet off his cot to the ground to give him some relief from the heat.

“Throwing a tantrum are we?”

That’s when he notices her on the other side of the room. She’s wearing the same type of blue scrubs he is, but she’s swimming in them, thin arms sticking out of them like a circus tent. Her hair is collected in a messy bun on the top of her head, and this might be the first time he’s ever seen her without something sparkly in her hair.

Might be the first time he’s seen her without makeup, because she looks awful. “Vala?”

Asks because he can’t really tell if it’s her or not from his vantage point across the room—she may as well be on the CRT TV screen.

“Morning Roomie,” she greets, trying to keep her usual jest, but he can hear the congestion in her chest. When she coughs it sounds awful, like it’s ripping through her lungs, and she’s left breathing harder afterwards.

He shuffles back down in his bed, relieved that he didn’t decide to start taking his sweat-soaked shirt off before he noticed her. “Your fever finally spike?” 

“While it is what the doctor calls ‘spectacularly high’—” She blows her nose into a tissue and he can hear the pileup in her sinuses. Her nose is bright red and her eyes watery and half open “—she was more concerned when I started coughing up film last night.”

“It’s phlegm, and that’s too much information.”

“Sorry that we all can’t be—” she drops her used tissue on the floor, and he doesn’t hear another word she says.

“Ugh—” his nose twitches when he notices the small pyramid of used tissues piling up beside her bed. “Clean those up.”

She stops talking, blinking twice, a tissue still shoved up her nose making her voice nasally, “pick up what?”

“Your snot rags.”

“Excuse me?” She sounds more offended than she really needs to, adding an indignant snuffle at the end of her question.

“Your dirty, booger drenched Kleenexes—” he nuzzles back into the pillow, starting to feel unnaturally hot again. “Clean them up.”

“First of all,” she croaks, and he can hear her shift on her bed as it creaks from never being used, “I don’t know what ‘snot’ or ‘boogers’ are, but they sound as if they have a negative connotation which you cannot—”

“It’s the green sludge flowing out of your nose.”

“Ugh,” she blows her nose again and there’s a pause before she snuffles and the soft sound of the tissue hitting the pile. “I could’ve lived happily without knowing that.”

“Yeah, well, now that you do, chuck your used Kleenexes in the garbage.”

“Well, that was my second issue.”

“Which is?”

“They haven’t given us any rubbish bins.”

He groans, rolling his eyes and flipping back towards her, his head really heavy—it feels so full, like it’s gonna burst—but she’s no longer pestering, or even sitting up on the cot, instead, resting with her hands tucked up under her chin, a tissue wrapped up between her fingers.

“We gotta—” he sighs, and changes his position so he can copy hers, staring at her across the aisle between them, that seems to grow and fade in the distance. “Keep this place clean.”

“Darling—” her voice is much harsher, and she coughs into the crook of her arm, before snorting up all the loose goo in her nose and continuing “—we’re in this room, it’s no longer clean.”


	6. Day 5

The sound of the bathroom door whacking off the wall wakes him from a late afternoon nap.

He was actually awake enough to sit through his needle stick—still sporting the cotton ball on the hinge of his arm—sat like the perfect patient on the side of his cot, his feet pressed hard into the ground as Lam insisted on swabbing the inside of his mouth because Vala was complaining of a ‘scratchy throat’—something he and Lam tried to discern through an impromptu game of twenty questions if the scratchy throat is sore and something that needs to be looked into more, of if Vala just needs to drink more water.

It ended with all of them getting upset with each other, and Lam opting to just add daily mouth swabs to the laundry list of medical procedures they do every morning.

Vaguely remembers telling Vala that if this sore throat thing goes away after lunch that he’s going to get upset.

But as he startles awake, glancing over the back of his bed towards the bathroom door where steam is slowly inching into the room because she forgot to turn on the damn fan again—she’s been here less than forty-eight hours, and already had three showers—forgetting each time to just flick a switch before she cranks the heat all the way up, so it ends up turning the room into a tropical sauna, like they’re back in that Amazonian basin of the planet.

How long does it really take to go dunk a jar into a river?

“You know, when all this is done and we get out of here, I think one of the first things I’m gonna do, is see how long it actually takes to gate to that planet and grab a stupid jar of water so I can prove that these guys are just wasting time.”

“How absolutely egotistical of you, Darling. I love it.”

She still tries to keep that sashay to her walk like she always does, the one that draws attention away from what her hands might be doing—probably stealing something—and down to her hips. She’s always walked this way—he’s seen her walk a thousand times before—but this time might be the first—okay probably the second—time that he’s actually take notice of how mesmerizing her movements are.

Not even the way he should think, but more like lulling, hypnotic—a weird dance.

“You move like you’re from a different planet.” Has one of the four pillow he’s been given—he keeps telling the nurses and Lam that he’s uncomfortable—tucked under his chin, an arm wrapped underneath it as he watches her sway before the bed.

“I am from another planet.” Her answer is punctuated by a solid cough that rattles around in her chest—at least she’s learned how to cover her mouth—and she turns, spitting something up into a tissue, balling it, and throwing it onto the floor.

“Vala!”

“What?” Turns to face him, her skin shiny from the shower with blotches of red popping up on her neck and chest—probably where she stayed under the spray too long—she likes her showers hotter than hell, and his lungs start to itch—actually itch, not hurt—from the added moisture pouring into the room.

“Stop throwing your damn Kleenexes on the floor.”

“But they still haven’t brought me a rubbish bin—”

“Then keep them in your bed or something.”

He gets a sharp pain behind his left eye, and suddenly the luminescent lights are too hard to bear, so he glances away, turning his back to her, raising his left shoulder a bit to block out the light from his vision.

“Are you honestly suggesting that I sleep in a cot full of my own nasal fluids?”

Imaging a mountain of used tissues piled up on the bed, the stench of sickness almost visible, the hacking, sneezing, and nose blowing never ending, makes his stomach uneasy. Absently, he scratches his arm, the area where he gets the stupid needle stick every morning—he’s gonna have to talk to Lam about easing up, because at this point, he doesn’t know if his body can keep up with the blood draw.

“Look, I don’t care what you do, as long as that pile of disease-ridden garbage isn’t near me.” It’s a throaty snore against the pillow as he can feel the bright lights start to fade, and it’s hard to keep his consciousness.

“We’re in quarantine together, you idiot.” She sounds more offended than sick, but it’s quickly followed by a cough ripping around in her chest, and the blast of her nose inside a tissue again.

“That doesn’t mean we have to help ourselves get sicker.”

“No, it means we’re already exposed.”

“Look Princess,” grunts, wide awake again because she just needs to argue with everything.

Couldn’t just wade through the river, had to debate to find another way around. They couldn’t just ford the river, they had to wait for a shallow point. She stood there on her hill which was actually a small piece of land in the middle of the river untouched by water and she—

“Bacteria—diseases transform all the time, they change and evolve and get worse—”

Squints, watching her gather her somewhat damp hair, raising her arms to collect it in a bunch on the top of her head, tying it in place, and then fanning herself with a flapping hand.

“So, you’re insinuating that I somehow progressed this disease?”

“No,” groans turning his head in towards his forearm, trying to hide from the light, but also trying to hide from her, the way a few pieces of hair fall free from her bun. “I’m saying that diseases can do that on their own, that we don’t need to help them.”

“But they still haven’t given me a rubbish bin—” Her voice trails off, expands at the end of her sentence like he can hear it diffuse in the atmosphere of the room along with all the particles of hot water transformed into steam that are now eating away at his lungs.

“Then ask better, Vala—” he snaps without turning around, intent on getting some sleep “—you’re usually more persuasive than this.”


	7. Day 6

Vala has a coughing fit a little after what he thinks is two in the morning—or two in the afternoon, the clock face they put up above the door really doesn’t help when there’s no windows or dependable passage of time to give hints to whether it’s morning or evening.

The deep resounding sound of air tearing through her lungs, followed by a prominent wheeze as she tries to catch her breath, wakes him from what he can only describe as a fever dream where he’s back in high school because there was a problem with his transcripts and it turns out that he never really passed his final term due to early acceptance into the air force—then the Smurfs show up to teach him Art, and the sculptures he created are true to reality because he can’t tell what the hell they are.

He was never any good at art.

And he hates the Smurfs.

As he shakes his head clear of trying to sculpt an emotion—and impress Amy Vandenburg—Vala comes into view, her knees tented underneath a thin sheet and her fist bundled to her mouth in order to catch her coughs, only for her to pull it away as she sucks in a breath to cough harder.

“Vala?”

She doesn’t answer him or she doesn’t hear him, he never knows.

Her face is red and sweaty, and most of her hair falling loose from her bun sticking to her forehead, her cheeks and the back of her neck, and he realizes on her next inhalation, her pathetic gulp of air, that she can’t breathe.

“Vala?” This time he asks with a little more urgency, forcing himself to sit up in bed, and taking a second as the room starts to slant and run away.

“I can’t—” is all she manages to get out before she coughs harder, blinking away tears in her eyes.

Doesn’t know what she needs—oxygen maybe—but even if that was it, he doesn’t know how to use the machinery.

Trying to ignore his dizziness, he stands and stumbles over his feet, tripping his way over to the end of her bed, using the metal frame as support, until he keeps his drunken walk to the wall, his hand slapping down on the emergency call button.

It takes him a few tries, but the flat button depresses, and he’s met with a fuzzy voice through the intercom.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t recognize it, but he can barely hear the nurse over the interference and Vala’s coughing fit. “This is Colonel Mitchell—”

“I know who you are, Colonel. What seems to be the problem.”

Either this sickness thing is getting out of control or the nurses they’re hiring all have anger management problems and the shortest fuses he’s ever seen.

“Vala needs help.”

“Why do you think that?”

He bites the inside of his cheek because he’s still on a military base, and he still has to keep the demeanor of a Colonel—that and his Momma told him to never say the choice words he has to a woman.

“Well, in case you can’t hear her fighting to catch her breathe behind me—” takes a deep breath and finds that his dry lungs aren’t so dry anymore. He’s willing to bet this has something to do with her lingering shower vapors “—she’s having some sort of reaction. I think she needs oxygen.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because her lips are starting to turn blue—Look would you just send in Lam already?” He doesn’t stop depressing the button so he can’t hear what the nurse’s snarky comeback is, but with another heavy breath he adds, “and tell her to bring a trash can.”


End file.
